Mistakes

If the majority of us were QA'd every day they would find mistakes on all of us with the quantity  that we type.  We are all human.  But is there someway TAT they can give you everyone else but that one doctor.  I am the other way because I have one doctor that comma's me to death and so I hate to use a comma.   You have been with them for four years for goodness sakes that should be something especially if this is the first complaint against you.   They should bend knowing that since you are now aware of it you will be extra careful.   Talk with them again and explain to them you need more.   Good luck.   No one is perfect. 

Patti

• I AM FREAKING OUT..... - what to do, what to do...
  • Commas (sm) - Gem
  • commas - scribester
    • While there may be some institutions that do not care about...sm - Experienced MT
    • I hardly think she was padding line counts. - it's not like she added 100 commas per page
    • I can see your point about grammar, but using commas to pad line counts??!! - I can think of a lot better ways. not OP/NM
  • Mistakes - Patti
  • Oh no! This could be me! - another comma crazy MT
    • Me too. - mtathome
    • I, too, love commas! I was told by an English - ditto this
      • don't know how long ago that was, - but i think that advice may not be
  • Explain to them the realities of life, and hopefully they'll bend. - nm
  • I'd tell them to stuff it, but that's just me - sm
  • for now. . . - stephanie
    • I, too, agree with Stephanie! Good Luck! - commafreaktoo nm
    • I agree with "stephanie" - Passing through

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I have almost 9 years' of experience.  I still make mistakes and always will.  There are many things that I still do not know.  I still come across things I have never heard of.  I still get corrections here and there from my QA. 

However, I think that is a good thing, QA.  I like getting corrections back when I have made an error.  That alerts me to the problem.  That makes me a better MT.  Also, I take some comfort in the fact that something I overlooked may be caught by another.  It is supposed to be team work.  The MT and QA are supposed to work together to produce a perfect report. 

It is all in how you look at it.  It is very easy to get your feathers in a ruffle when given a correction.  I believe that reaction is soley out of embarrassment over making the mistake in the first place.  That is silly, however, seeing that we all do make mistakes and no one knows everything. 

I read below about the mistakes and I have to admit, I make mistakes, I am human.  My accounts know I am human.  I just re-read one of my physicals and I had somehow put "See expensive data base in chart" and it should have been "See extensive ..." it is not often but it does happen.  If we were perfect we surely would not be here on earth right now.  It is hard for us to see and find our own mistakes.   But for those who say that they have 98 or 99% error free, what does that actually mean -- for every 100 words you can have two errors, or what.  Never have been able to figure that out.   If I do 3000 lines per day, can I have 30 to 60  lines with errors?   All I know is that the majority of us do a darn good job and the best we can and those that make continuous errors, just like in any line of work, won't  be in it for long but mistakes and errors do happen to all of us.   For those that have no compassion for anyone that does make errors, be careful as it is a long way to fall off of the pedestal.    My two cents worth go ahead and flame me, I have broad shoulders. 

PS --my accounts have been with me for 5 to 15 years and I make over $50K a year but I do make mistakes.  

If your job is not QA, you have no reason to be looking at someone else's work. Someone should be supplying you w/ the appropriate, properly de-identified samples.Viewing a report typed by another person is a potential HIPAA violation.  Don't mean to preach, but that's the way it is....

like punctuation I wouldn't worry too much, just try to do whatever they say.  If you are making big mistakes like spelling terms incorrectly, using Google to research and just because there are severl hits you decide the word/term/spelling is correct and so with it, although there is a ton of misinformation on google.  Did you spell a drug wrong, a doctor's name wrong, just did guess at a word rather than leaving a blank, etc.

I think the majority of QA is helpful.  Some get off on a power trip, but most really want to be helpful and help you be the best you can be. 

I recently made a job change and I felt like I would never get a report back from QA that there wasn't something wrong with it.  It wasn't so much an error as it was that the account was extremely particular.  I would fix one error, only the next day they would find something else.  I have 20+ years of experience.

Try not to take it personally, look at it as they are helping you to be a better MT.   If you continue to make the same mistakes get you some brightly colored sticky notes and write yourself notes and put them where you'll see them as you work.   Even though you probably want to get a high line count you need to concentrate on quality first.  Take the time to proof thoroughly. 

I am an IC and for the past 5 years have worked for the same doc.  He still uses tapes so I deliver on a daily basis.  I already load the work on his PC and make sure the pages line up etc. and do not get paid extra.  I also convert some reports from WP to Word and e-mail to him at no extra charge.  Now he starts calling me after I leave the clinic and expect me to either turn-around and come fix the mistakes/changes (15 minutes later) or I must wait in his office until he is finished with a patient consult, can go through the work to check for mistakes/changes for me.  The mistakes range from doctor's names misspelled (workmen's comp with lots of different doc names, impossible to search and find as no clue where the doc is located) or template changes etc. and sometimes silly mistakes which is totally my mistake.  Am I fair in stating that I do not mind doing the corrections when I return the next day but that I cannot wait around in his office for him as he does not pay me for that and I will also not turn around after I have left the office to go back when they call me? How do all of you handle this type of situation? 

Very interesting article in the New York Times today. When you compare what this reporter has to say about doctors' survival statistics and compare it to medical transcriptionists, this is what one can discern:

1.  Doctors are fatally wrong 20% of the time (we are allowed 2% errors).

2.  Medicare and other insurance carriers are looking for ways to provide "incentives" for doctors to get it right (sounds like a QA bonus if I ever heard of one).

3.  Doctors have available to them a program called "Isabel," where they can punch in symptoms and get a diagnosis. (More machines replacing more people.)

My conclusion? Maybe it doesn't matter what level you perceive yourself to be at in the heirarchy of medicine, there exists a group of people trying to replace you with a machine that they believe does a better job than a human.

What are your thoughts?

This happens often lately, due to being new at dictation.  I never charge when it is my mistake, but lately I am wasting an hour a day making corrections to their previous reports.  Should I charge by the time it takes to make the corrections and also to reprint the report? What is the norm?

Thanks again!    

I work on a platform where we can pull up previously-transcribed reports for samples.  I have worked for this company for about 7 months now and have never had a QA done on my work.  I like to know if I am doing something wrong or if there is a better/easier way of doing things.  While going through some reports to get samples I have noticed things that are not that big a deal, but more along the line of somebody padding their lines, i.e., in the laboratory section writing out the number seventeen, in extremity examination writing out plus-two pedal pulses, cranial nerves two through twelve, things like this.  Also, things like sclerae IS instead of are.  Our accounts are not verbatim.

I guess my question is what would most of you do, leave it alone or say something about it?  I have left it alone for this long, but it just doesn't sit well with me.  I'm sure I do things that are wrong too and that is why I wouldn't mind getting reviewed every now and then to ensure consistency and quality.  Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions. 

It's about the unemployment rate rising in our country while American jobs are sent to third world countries.  It's about the ability to protect our medical data and our identities.  The government makes laws to protect our health information and our privacy, but then our records are sent to another country where the laws cannot be enforced.  So who is accountable when the unforseen happens?

I get so tired of the MTs who have the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" mentality or say we have crappy MTs here and so it's okay to send the work to another country.  That shortsighted thinking.  Sure there are crappy American MTs.  Look in any profession and there will be crappy workmanship from somebody.  That is no excuse to offshore.  If you are an employer, you develop a hiring and testing process that weeds out the uneducated or underqualified candidates.  And when you find the one that meets the qualifications and passes the test, then you pay them what they are worth!  You show them they are appeciated and respected by paying them for their skills and offering them a great benefit package.

You get what you pay for.  If you going to pay an American MT 8 cpl, then you are probably gonna get a fast typist who makes a ton of mistakes because in order for her to put food on her table, she has to produce, produce, produce at 8 cpl.  If you are going to offshore your work to an Indian MT at 2 cpl, then you are going to have a fast foreign typist who doesn't have a solid grasp of the English language and makes tons of mistakes and all of his or her work will likely have to be proofread by an American MT who has taken 4 cpl to be an editor, but she isn't really an Editor because all she does is fast-foward to blanks and fill them in and send it on to the client because in order to put food on her table she's got to do twice a much as the MTs.

It is a viscious, never-ending circle as long as we let it be.  You need to jump off the merry-go-round.  It's the only way out. 

let's? 

Comparing other countries to ours, we sure have a lot of sloppy MT's too.  In the local hospital where I work, all the supervisor can say is,"Type faster, type faster." WHO CARES IF SOMEONE GETS THE WRONG LEG CUT OFF OR WHATEVER.  I WOULD NOT TAKE MY DOGGY THERE!!!!!